Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
This week I was lucky enough to have a mid-week day off from work. So, in typical Ryan’s Kitchen Journal fashion, I decided to bake something. Being that St. Patrick’s Day is at the end of the week, I figured Irish Soda Bread was a great choice. I’ve also never made soda bread before but had been wanting to. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass me up.
Continue reading “Irish Soda Bread, The Ina Garten Way – Barefoot Contessa 59”
This recipe can be found in Barefoot Contessa At Home
Last week, dinner was a simple chicken dish. And I have to say, I think I like Ina’s recipe for Chicken Piccata better than any I’ve had at a restaurant before! The simplicity of this recipe makes it a stellar recipe for weeknights. But it’s also elegant enough to serve for a special occasion.
Chicken Piccata, in Ina’s version, is simply breaded chicken cutlets in a lemon sauce. I did make a few changes so the recipe would be healthier (and less messy) but I think the general idea still comes through.
Continue reading “Barefoot Contessa Recipe 48 Chicken Piccata”This recipe appears in Barefoot Contessa At Home, page 192.
Last week was a busy cooking week for me. I made a total of three different recipes! Earlier this week I posted about the first two which you can read about here and here.
But, I still haven’t written about the dessert that I made last week — until now. For dessert last week I made the Ultimate Ginger Cookie. This was definitely a new type of dessert for me since I am usually not a fan of gingerbread. But, I have to admit, these cookies were tasty!
Continue reading “Recipe #25 Ultimate Ginger Cookie”Both of these recipes can be found in At Home
In addition to the Parmesan Chicken I made last Saturday, I made two side dishes. Both of which complemented the main course nicely.
The buttermilk mashed potatoes are amazing! As someone who doesn’t get to have mashed potatoes very often, these were a welcome addition the meal. The potatoes were so creamy and flavorful. The salt Ina calls for is a lot, but the potatoes do not taste overly salty. The addition of pepper merges all the flavors and makes for a very tasty side dish.
The Orange-Honey Glazed Carrots are hands down, the BEST carrot recipe I’ve come across!
Using ginger, honey, and orange juice to turn up the volume on these carrots was a great choice for the meal I made. But, it’s also a great recipe crafted by the great IG! In fact, my family loved these carrots so much that we will be making them for our small family gathering at Thanksgiving. I can see them making a regular appearance at the Thanksgiving table year after year.
They are also going to be the first side dish recipe added to my list of Favorites!
As I may have mentioned earlier, I will be taking this week off from cooking dinner. But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to make an IG recipe! I plan to bake this weekend, but not dessert! Probably muffins or scones. Both of those are types of food I haven’t attempted yet. Plus it’ll be a good excuse to tackle one of the Breakfast recipes!
Come back to the blog tomorrow to check out my review of Back to Basics!
Until next time…
Ina’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars from Barefoot Contessa At Home
Last night, on a whim I felt that I was in the mood to bake. So, naturally, I chose an Ina recipe. I figured since it was late and a weeknight it would be best and easiest to bake something from the “Dessert” sections of the cookbooks. I thumbed through each of the 11 books I currently own, narrowed it down to three top choices then picked from those three.
And the Peanut Butter & Jelly Bars won….mainly due to the fact that I needed a limited number of ingredients from the grocery store.
After heading to the local Big Y, standing in line for almost 10 minutes while the elderly woman in front of me took her sweet time loading her groceries on the cashier’s conveyor belt, I started baking.
Everything was going well until I got to the part where I had to add the flour. Ina calls for 3 cups of flour for this recipe. I had the flour, but it was a new bag so the flour was more compact than usual and I think I added probably an extra tablespoon or two just because the flour was too packed in the cups.
This recipe looks easy, but peanut butter is hard to handle and I learned that cleaning up anything that had peanut butter in it can be challenging! Also, due to the my inclination that the mixture had too much flour, the dough itself was hard to spread.
It was more annoying than hard to make these. But after they baked and cool, I was impressed! They were so sweet and delicious and I doubt they will last very long in the house.
Disclaimer: I am not a photographer by any means. And I only have an iPhone 8 as a camera, so please bare with me on the sub-par photos.
Cheers!
Ryan's Kitchen Journal 